This invention relates generally to a system for evaluating infrastructure and minimizing overall repair costs. In particular, the present invention relates to a system that uses enumerated criteria for determining infrastructure condition and predicts the costs associated with repairing and maintaining the infrastructure if various repair/maintenance plans were to be implemented. In addition, this system minimizes overall costs of repair and maintenance and maximizes overall infrastructure quality while considering budget constraints.
Roadway and street managers face the daunting task of maintaining a transportation infrastructure that includes approximately six hundred thousand bridges and nearly four million miles of public roads and streets in the United States alone. Moreover, budgets for infrastructure maintenance are facing widespread shortages. As a result, these managers have to become increasingly proactive in analyzing maintenance scenarios and determining corrective measures while considering the various economic impacts and recognizing probable future trends.
Various proposals for systems that analyze pavement maintenance costs are found in the art, such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,189,606; 5,737,227; and 6,584,414. Writings may also be found that address the issue, such as Pavement Management Guide November 2001: Executive Summary Report (American Ass'n of State Highway and Transportation Officials 2001). While assumably effective for their intended purposes, these systems do not minimize overall costs of repair and maintenance or maximize overall infrastructure quality while considering budget constraints. Nor do they take into consideration the entire transportation infrastructure; instead they focus solely on pavement.
Moreover, the applicant's system uses enumerated criteria and observed data to provide a user with a range of information, including the lifetime cost of repairing a specific segment of infrastructure at any given time compared to the lifetime cost of repairing that segment of infrastructure at any other given time, the repairs needed to minimize overall costs to the entire infrastructure system over any given time frame while considering budget constraints, and various solutions to maximize infrastructure condition while considering budget constraints.